Adventure Log
Adventure 1 - Get Your Goat The crew head to the Sailor's Place Saloon, the grittiest drinking joint in all of Faretika, to meet a halfling farmer with some interesting cargo that he needs delivered upriver. On their way there they witness a young elf, Jin Tana, being chased and cornered by the local sheriff and his deputies. Tired of his antics, the latest being a romantic liason with the deputy mayor, the sheriff threatens to turn Jin over to the Imperials to do hard labor in the coal mines. Captain Ulixes Pike steps in and offers to conscript him onto his riverboat, the Mary Beth. The sheriff gladly agrees, hoping he will finally have Jin out of his hair. Seeing the banjo slung around the young elf bard, the captain gives him the nickname Banjo. At the saloon, the crew meets Bobbo Goodherd, a successful halfling goat rancher who has a cousin trying to repeat his success out on the frontier. He needs the crew to deliver his prize goat stud upriver to his cousin Dobbo in Allesville. Stating that the goat must arrive unharmed and unstressed, he offers 150 gp for the job, 75 up front, and 75 from his cousin on the other end. The captain talks him into 100 up front and 50 on delivery. After completing the deal, Bobbo leaves the saloon and shortly thereafter Captain Orinthal Devereaux and his orc bruiser Johnny Waterhorse burst into the saloon. Devereaux immediately begins insulting the Mary Beth. Keeping his cool and avoiding a messy bar fight, Captain Pike challenges Devereaux to a riverboat race in the morning. Overnight, Banjo slips a concoction created by the boat's engineer Hargate Ennis into the coal delivery for Devereaux's boat, the Excelsior. The next morning the crew readies the boat for the journey. George the friendly dwarven postal carrier drops off mail bound for Allesville. The crew also welcomes a passenger on board, Lady Arabella McIntyre, a genteel actress and costumer, who is to rendezvous with her fellow thespians in Allesville to join their frontier theatre troupe. The bleating goat also arrives, along with it's special diet of fresh hay and mustard greens. Before leaving, Hargate buys supplies and fashions a floatation device for the goat, dubbing it a “goatation” device. The agreed-upon race commences with the Excelsior, which initially outdoes the Mary Beth. After pulling ahead however, the sabotage takes effect and a loud sound is heard and weird purple smoke is seen billowing out of the Excelsior's stacks. The Mary Beth pushes past the disabled vessel much to the chagrin of Captain Devereaux. As requested the crew takes the goat out for a walk but the unruly animal breaks free and begins running around the ship. Eventually it is recaptured and returned to its room. The Lady McIntyre emerges from her room in the afternoon in elf costume and makeup, making her way around the boat, dancing the “exotic dance of the elves.” Later the boat motors past Fort Garrek, a notoriously dismal place where no soldier would wish to be posted. At sunset, a herd of manatees covering the entire breadth of the river swim past the boat. Early in the evening Lady McIntyre reports seeing a strange light dancing around the smokestacks of the boat. The crew investigates, climbing the stacks to look inside, but nothing is discovered. They retire to the mess hall to drink brandy and read salacious letters that they have dug out of the postal bag. Later in the evening Hargate notices that the goat has stopped its incessant bleating. Concerned, he goes to investigate and discovers two orcish river agents attempting to steal the goat. Ferocious combat ensues in the cramped quarters of the riverboat during which one of the agents is killed and the other is badly wounded and taken captive. During the chaos the goat jumps overboard but is saved by the “goatation” device and is retrieved by the crew. After some interrogation the crew learns that the orc is part of the Cuttooth Gang, thugs for hire. Despite being “waterwheeled” (tied to the ships wheel as it turns), the orc gives up nothing about who hired them. After an uneventful second day of travel, the Mary Beth arrives at Allesville. Hargate convinces Lady McIntyre to use her stage makeup skills to improve the look of the disheveled goat so as not to concern Dobbo Goodherd. The goat is delivered and the halfling farmer is eager to bring him out to the ranch so he can get down to business. The Captain accepts the originally agreed-upon 75 gp for delivery. Hargate also sells Dobbo his “goatation” device. The orc river agent is turned over to the local sheriff, and Lady McIntyre invites the crew to see her performance in the evening. Adventure 2 The crew meets Doctor Professor Chauncy Dortwynn, a renowned naturalist, at an after-performance gathering at the Allesville tavern. Dortwynn is seeking evidence of a man-sized river-dwelling creature on the New Continent that could be related to a smaller cousin species on the Old Continent. He has heard tales of such creatures from native Orcs he has spoken to. He offers a handsome sum of 500 gp for the voyage upriver to a lake where he believes they reside. Captain Pike makes a counter-offer: 600 gp if they find the creature, and 1000 gp if they can take it back to civilization. The Professor accepts this, having his Dwarven porter produce 250 gp up front on the spot, and arrangements are made to leave in the morning. In the morning the Captain obtains numerous baked goods and a keg of ale to trade on the frontier and to spread goodwill to its inhabitants. A mailbag destined for a small naval outpost is also picked up, which carries double the usual payment (20 gp) due to the hazard of being out on the frontier. News around town is that a treaty was recently signed between the Empire and the local Orcish tribes so things are relatively peaceful for now. The first day's travel is relatively uneventful. Hargate's new automatic coal hopper has reduced the coal-shoveling burden on the crew, and the Captain is concerned that this could upset the cooperative tradition of each crew member doing an equal amount of coal shoveling. He decrees that each crew member should now do an equal amount of cleaning the coal hopper. On their way to the lake they encounter an Orc tradesman on a small boat who offers high quality furs for trade. The captain bargains and pays 8 gp for 50 gp worth of furs, and throws in some tasty pies as well. In the meantime Hargate has brewed up a barrel of wood alcohol, believing that hardy Orcs might enjoy the drink and would not suffer the same ill effects that humans would. In the evening the river begins to widen, signaling that the lake is drawing near. That night Dogrider notices a strange light coming from the cargo hold and when the crew investigates they find that someone or something has gotten into the mailbag and letters have been open strewn about, but is now nowhere to be found. Banjo, who was supposed to keep the mailbag safe, is punished with extra swabbing duty, made doubly difficult as Hargate has used a bug-sprayer-like device to spray cornstarch all over the boat in search of invisible stowaways. In the morning they come upon a pathetic unnamed naval outpost manned by 12 sailors. They eagerly dig into the mailbag desperate for letters from home. The captain offers to give them the keg of ale in exchange for their assistance in searching for the river beast. They accept and help look for it in the lake throughout the day, but to no avail. The Captain bribes the cartographer officer 5 gp to name the lake Ulixes' Lake. The Professor suggests that they head deeper into the lake that night in the hopes that in the morning they would have more luck.With Dogrider at the helm, they steam farther out into the lake through the night. Around midnight Dogrider notices that the stars have disappeared from the sky and a wave has passed by the boat. Over the next several minutes it becomes clear that the boat is no longer outside and it soon becomes obvious that they have been swallowed by an enormous creature. The Professor is equally thrilled and terrified by this discovery. He believes that this is the beast he was looking for, but it is unimaginably larger than he expected. The crew immediately tries to steam back out the mouth of the beast, but as they approach the mouth, it opens and a huge inrush of water pushes the Mary Beth back down the throat that closes behind them. Deeper into the beast, perhaps the stomach, the riverboat runs aground. The crew has hatched a plan to give the beast indigestion using the wood alcohol and various alchemical explosives that Hargate has concocted. As they exit the boat to apply these chemicals to the stomach wall, they are attacked from the darkness by a giant frog, who croaks up a swarm of bees that attack the crew. The frog is later joined by 3 goblins, one of whom is a berserker wielding a large piece of driftwood with a nail protruding from it. The frog then spits out a cloud of fog that prevents missile attacks from the boat. During the melee the frog is set on fire by an alchemical bomb, and it proceeds to transform into a goblin wearing a disgusting coat fashioned from tentacles. The other goblins cover his retreat as he casts a spell causing water to form above him, that splashes down and puts out the fire. Soon the other goblins withdraw back into the darkness and call for a truce. A parlay is set up and Dogrider serves as the translator. They learn that the chieftain is called Big Tooth and the berserker goblin is in fact his son, Junior Tooth. It becomes clear that this tribe of goblins has been in the belly of this beast so long that the fact that it is a beast has become lost to history. They recount a mythology about a mean Father God who sends bad dangerous things down the "river" and a merciful Mother God who sends them good things like food and materials for building shelters and clothing. The gods are upset because their children are trapped farther down the river. The goblin tribe makes little toys and clothing for the god children and send them down the "river" to appease the god parents. During the parlay the goblin chieftain agrees to let the riverboat go peacefully down the river. As the parlay is concluding, Little Tooth, the chieftains daughter begins arguing with her father and brother, and then runs to Dogrider and exclaims that she wants to go with them downriver. The captain agrees to let her come along. Another female goblin runs up and gives the daughter crafted toys to take to the god children. Soon the riverboat is picked up by the "tide" (the next digestive cycle of the beast) and Junior Tooth is seen looking out at his sister floating away. The riverboat passes through some sort of intestinal tract, whose walls are lined with tentacles that look very much like those that the chieftain's coat seemed to be fashioned of. As they pass farther down the tract, an incredible nauseating stench overwhelms them, signaling that the exit is near. In their sickened state they deploy their chemicals and explosives, inducing the beast to expel its excrement. In a chaotic storm of firey explosions, feces, and toxic gas, the Mary Beth emerges out into the sunlit day. Adventure 3 The Mary Beth begins its return to Faretika. While sailing back downriver past Allesville, the riverboat crew encounters Dobbo Goodherd who has tested out the Goatation device and desperately wants one for every goat in his herd so they can graze freely on the many river-islands across the countryside. Back in Faretika, Prof. Chauncey Dortwynn settles up as promised and pays for repairs to the riverboat on top of the agreed-to payment for the journey. The Captain spends a great sum throwing a grand party, including the hiring of no small number of prostitutes. In the morning, a Friar Partridge from the Old Continent requests travel up-river to a mission, as he has been summoned there to help the troubled outpost. The friar is accompanied by a large treant. After 3 days, the crew and the Friar reach the mission during morning prayers. The mission is populated by a multiracial mix of humans, humanoids, orcs, and goblins. Many of them are displaced people from the war. The head of the mission, Father Harrison, is relieved to see the friar, and explains that the mission has been plagued by rotting wood on the dwellings, a strange stench (a mix of burning flesh and old cheese), biting dragonfly swarms, hordes of snails, and some kind of curse that makes all food taste like rotten meat. After directing his helper Mountain Joe, a large Orc, to help the crew with their things, Friar Harrison suggests a procession behind the saintly relic that the friar has brought - a bone from the foot of their patron saint, ensconsed in a golded foot vessel that is mounted upside-down on a pole for display purposes. During the procession at noon, it begins to rain crawdads. The relic shields a small area around it from the crawdads, but ultimately the entire mission is 6 inches deep in crawdads by the end of it. The crew learns that there are two local Orc tribes in the region, one patriarchal and one matriarchal. The mission has had contact with the patriarchal one, known as the Eagle Talon tribe, and has converted some members of it including Mountain Joe, but has had no contact with the matriarchal one, known as the Wide River tribe. Mountain Joe is noticed to be missing in the afternoon. In the process of trying to track him down, the crew finds a pagan site in the woods nearby containing various strange Orcish tribal artifacts. In the evening the mission is attacked by the matriarchal orc tribe on one side of the mission, and Orc zombies wielding ceremonial tomahawks from the other side. The zombies wear feather-covered coats much like the one that Johnny Waterhorse of the Excelsior wears. The living orcs are led by a formidable Chieftess, Mama Big Bear or Gatanka Motok, and Mountain Joe (whose true name is Garuk Tok) is fighting alongside her. During the fight, Friar Partridge and the Chieftess engage in hand-to-hand combat, and a grapple becomes a romantic embrace. The Chieftess calls off her forces, both living and undead, and declares that she does not truly wish the mission harm, but that it is on a burial ground for her tribes warriors and must move. She directed her shaman, Bogoth, to try to drive out the mission with plagues, because she did not want to discuss holy matters directly with outsiders. Members of the patriarchal Eagle Talon tribe were pretending to be converts to support the mission and insult the other tribe. The arrival of the foot relic was a final straw, as the baring of a naked foot is considered a great insult in her tribe. Father Harrison is deeply apologetic, as filial piety is part of his Order, and agrees to move the mission elsewhere. Friar Partridge, inspired by the culture and wisdom of the Orc tribe, and the beauty of the Chieftess, declares that he is going to join the tribe and take her as his bride. Adventure 4 The Mary Beth is back in Allesville to deliver Hargate's goatation devices to Dobbo Goodherd. After a small-scale test involving a dozen goats, none of whom perished during the river crossing, Dobbo aggrees to by a gross of them for 2 gp each. Afterwards there is a celebration at the ranch house. The captain is suffering from religious delusions after a drug-fueled bacchanal at a whore house in Faretika about which he remembers very little. His teetotaler pamphleteering is sincere, but largely dismissed. The crew encounters the mailman George the dwarf on the docks, who has been restationed there after a joke gone awry back in Faretika that was recived badly by local muckety-mucks. He relays some rumors about mixed bands of goblins and orcs stirring up trouble on the frontier. He reckons that the goblins are upset about treaty violations that have occurred since the end of the war. Hargate receives a letter from the mithril mine in which he has invested that mentions bandit activity, and the crew decides to head to the mine to investigate. On the way to the mine the Mary Beth docks in Faretika and an apothecary is enlisted to detoxify the captain, though his religious inclinations are not entirely erased. Shortly after leaving Faretika the Mary Beth encounters the Excelsior, which is now flying the flag of a deputized river sherrif. (Due to the need for forces on the frontier, some riverboats have been hastily deputized to pick up the slack.) Still quite angry about the explosive prank during the riverboat race, Captain Devereaux proceeds to attempt to arrest the Mary Beth crew, promising hard labor in the salt mines. A fight breaks out during which Devereaux's second, Johnny Waterhorse is killed by Ulixes' swords, and Devereaux is nearly sheared in half between the two riverboats before surrendering. An illegal cannon is dispatched by a precise shot down its barrel by the gunmage Number Two. Captain Pike leaves Devereaux to walk his way home on the river bank, and tells the remaining crew of the Excelsior to inform everyone of Devereaux's scoundrel ways. Adventure 5 To be cleared of all charges related to sabotaging and attacking Orinthal Devereaux and his boat the Excelsior, the players agree to bring Imperial Agent Willard Marlowe up the river on a reconnaissance mission. On the way up the river the players encounter Lady Arabella McIntyre performing a burlesque show for Empire sailors. Escorted by Colonel Crook's warboat flotilla, the Mary Beth passes through a dangerous strait where Imperial and goblinoid armies are battling. En route the crew visits the mithril mine and discover it ransacked and all miners killed or fled. Eventually the crew encounters an encampment of goblinoids led by Friar Partridge, who now goes by his orcish name Tankanok. Hundreds of severed feet are mounted on poles throughout the encampment (reminiscent of the Friar's foot-topped staff), signaling that Partridge has drifted from his pacifist ways and embraced the war on the side of the Goblinoids. The crew learns Marlowe's real mission is to terminate Partridge's command with extreme prejudice and wipe out his followers. The crew had been secretly selected for this mission due to their past interactions with Friar Partridge. The crew spies on Partridge and signals to Marlowe when he is alone and vulnerable. Marlowe kills Partridge with a bullet to the head, and then launches a rocket with a liquid payload into the clouds above, which begin to turn dark and green... Adventure 6 With the Friar assassinated and the rocket deployed, Willard Marlowe tells the crew that they must leave and bring him back to Faretika. Soon, a handsome cleric, a worshiper of Saint John Paul, the saint of life and healing, emerges from the encampment with urgent news that zombies are arising and they must leave immediately. Marlowe is surprised at this news, not having expected such an effect from the weapon. On their way back down the river, they rescue Lady Arabella McIntyre who is being pursued by zombies, both human and orc in origin and dressed in military garb. Meanwhile the dark cloud drifts over the countryside. Low on coal, the crew stops at an Imperial supply depot. Jin the bard disguises himself as an admiral and convinces the garrison to give the Mary Beth a cannon and tarps in addition to coal. They are also persuaded to re-station in Allesville to protect the town from the zombie onslaught. Upon arrival in Allesville the crew warns the town to be ready for zombies. Dobbo Goodherd is spotted running towards town, and it soon becomes clear that he is running from zombie goats. The goat stud has been zombified and significantly enlarged, and is charging at the town with 10 of his zombie harem in tow. The crew successfully defends the town by defeating the zombie herd.